


Memory Attic

by WhiteravenGreywolf



Series: If I stay [34]
Category: Captain Marvel (2019)
Genre: Carol is preparing a surprise for the wedding, F/F, Fluff, More VHS tapes, Trip Down Memory Lane, more family fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 09:51:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18496498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhiteravenGreywolf/pseuds/WhiteravenGreywolf
Summary: Carol went home to find the old VHS tapes, as she wants to prepare a special video for the wedding. However, it doesn't help that the attic is an old dusty nest of boxes...





	Memory Attic

**Author's Note:**

> Hye guys! Today I realized that I could spend the rest of my life writing about people watching videotapes and I would die happy... Anyway, another wedding-related story. I don't know if I told you guys the date of the wedding, it's on Friday, so don't forget to tune in!  
> Anyway, as usual, I hope you enjoy!

Carol flew down right before her home's porch, then took a few quick glances around. She couldn't see the flash of a camera. She sighed and took the keys out of her pocket. Since the wedding had been announced there had been paparazzi after them non-stop. They'd been camping at the entrance of the facility for a month at least. Maria could not leave the compound anymore, and the only reason Carol could was that she could fly over them. She'd half expected a few of them to keep watch at their old house, but it was more likely that none of them even knew about the house.

  
Carol unlocked the door and walked inside. She silently shut the door behind her and placed the keys on the nearest table. Everything here was so dusty. They hadn't gone home in a few months. A heavy coat of dust had coated everything, from the ground to the furniture. She sighed, deciding that she would have to clean it all up before the wedding.

  
Suddenly, there was a strange sound, a clack, like the ladder leading to the attic being closed off. She frowned. Had someone broken in and was going through their stuff? She raised her fist, cosmic energy dancing out of her skin. She wasn't really going to blast the intruder, she didn't want to destroy her home. It was just intimidation. She held her breath, listening in. There were light footsteps coming from upstairs. She positioned herself against the wall, right beside the stairs, and waited. The careful footsteps approached the stairs. As soon as they were a few steps down, Carol jumped away from the wall, hand first.

  
On the stairs, Monica jumped back, her hand gripping her weapon more tightly. Finally, when they realized who was on the other side, they both relaxed and lowered their arms.

  
"Jesus Christ, mom, you just scared the hell out of me!" Monica said with a breath of relief.

  
Carol sighed as well.

  
"I thought it was one of these gossip idiots who'd broken in or something."

  
Monica placed her gun back in its holster.

  
"Nope, just me going through some old stuff. Why are you here?"

  
"To go through some old stuff too."

  
Monica nodded and turned around. Together, they walked up to the stairs and all the way to the trap door leading to the attic.

  
"It's dustopolis up there," Monica warned.

  
"Any dead animals?" Carol asked.

  
"Not that I could find."

  
"Oh, then we should be good."

  
Monica pulled down the ladder, and they climbed up. As soon as her head passed through the trap, Carol sneezed. Dust was sent flying everywhere, creating an even thicker cloud in the room. A good dozen boxes were stacked up there, all labeled carefully. Monica had been going through a box labeled 'Pegasus'. A small pile of papers and files was stacked up beside it.

  
"Why are you here, actually?"

  
"It's a secret," Monica replied as she sat back down in front of the cardboard box.

  
"Okay, don't tell me. Fine."

  
Carol walked around, crouched slightly as her head almost scrapped the rooftop. She pushed aside a few boxes, looking at the label. One box was labeled 'Monica'. When Carol pulled it open, she found a ton of baby clothes, piles, and piles of onesies stacked up neatly, baby clothes, tiny shirts that Monica had probably worn when she was four or five.

  
"Aw, look!"

  
Carol held out one of the onesies and Monica looked over at her. She rolled her eyes when she saw it and returned to her own box.

  
"Baby clothes are so cute."

  
"I don't even know why mom kept all of these things."

  
"Maybe to give them to you for your own baby..."

  
Carol gave Monica a big smile, and Monica snored.

  
"Well, she should throw them away right now."

  
Carol shook her head in disbelief. She placed the onesie back into the box carefully and closed it off again. She pushed it aside and found another cardboard box. This one was labeled 'Toys'. Indeed, when she opened it, Carol found a bunch of Monica's toys, probably the ones she didn't want to give away. Carol knew she could have seriously teased Monica with them, but one look at her daughter told her she was focused and in 'serious mode' right now. Instead, she closed it off again.

  
"Hey, have you seen those VHS boxes?"

  
"Hmm, yeah, over there," Monica said without looking up. Carol stood up. She brushed off her pants even though it was completely useless as she would go back into the dust soon enough. She walked to the place where Monica had pointed. Indeed, she found the first box labeled 'VHS'. She opened it and started digging through it. She looked at the title of each VHS, then started making a pile on the side, a pile which grew rather quickly.

  
"Why do you need the VHS for?"

  
"Well first, apparently, I can have them digitized, which I will definitely do."

  
"And the real reason?"

  
Carol hesitated.

  
"Promise you won't tell your mom?"

  
"Sure."

  
"I want to make a special video for the wedding. I got pictures of us all the way till I returned, and a few videos too, but I couldn't find any of them from before the accident."  
Monica nodded and started searching through her box again. Carol was waiting for some sort of reply, and when she didn't get any, she looked over at her daughter and asked:  
"You think it's a good idea?"

  
"Yeah, I think it could be interesting."

  
"Now all I need to do is look through all of these tapes, have them all digitized, and then edit the video."

  
Carol huffed.

  
"It makes me tired just to think about it."

  
"Maybe I could do it for you?"

  
"Are you sure? You're not my maid of honor."

  
Again, Monica rolled her eyes.

  
"No, but I'm your daughter. I can definitely take care of it."

  
"Cool, thanks."

  
Carol looked back at the amount of tape she had piled up out of the box, and the few ones which were still left inside. She sighed, then sneezed.

  
"Oh, God... I'm definitely not staying up here any longer..."

  
Carol put every single tape back inside the box and closed it off.

  
"I'll just take them all back down."

  
She pushed the box to the ladder, then went after the second one. She found it easily, and after checking that the content of it really was tapes, she pushed it with the other. Then, she started looking for the last one. She looked at the label of every box near where the other two had been, but she only found more clothes and toys.

  
"I can't find the last one..." she mumbled.

  
Monica was so focused on her own box that she didn't hear her. Carol found herself in a corner of the attic, in front of one, isolated box. She turned it around until she could read the label. 'Carol', it said. She frowned and opened it.

  
She thought all of her belongings had been in the box Monica had cherished while she was away. Most of it had been. But there was more, apparently. A whole lot more. Among a few tee-shirts Carol didn't even remember she owed, there were piles of photos and a few folded pieces of paper. A few pieces of jewelry, mostly rings, and wristbands. Carol started going through them. At first, she couldn't remember when she had gotten any of this. She couldn't understand either why Maria would have stashed it up there, rather than in her box of belonging with everything else. Then, she picked up the pictures, and everything became clearer.

  
Most of them were pictures of the two of them. Carol must have taken them herself, with no respect for proper framing or lighting. On almost every single one of them, they were kissing or hugging or holding hands. Any sort of display of affection that, at best, would have raised a few eyebrows. There were also a lot of pictures of Maria. In a lot of them, Maria was actually in bed, probably only hidden by the blanket. There were some of Carol too, smiling happily at the camera. Almost none of them featured Monica, but the ones that did showed a little baby seating on Carol's lap, or a little toddler strapped in a baby-carrier in front of Maria, sucking on a pacifier, mother and daughter both wearing sunglasses.

  
Carol placed the pictures back into the box and picked up the papers. They were letters, most of them dated from summer 86'. Carol vaguely remembered this summer, though reading through the letters flooded her brain with memories. While the letters spanned a couple of weeks, they were all almost identical. A lot of 'I miss you' and ' love you'. How's Monica? How are things going at the base? Monica found a frog today. Everyone thought Goose had run away, but she'd just fallen asleep in a desk drawer. I miss you. Come home soon. I miss you. Just a few more days. I love you.

  
Carol folded the letters and placed them back into the box. She closed it off and brought it with her to the ladder.

  
"Did you find it?" Monica asked.

  
"I found better, actually."

  
"Well, good for you."

  
Monica hurriedly returned to her own box, only to find it empty. She huffed and started going through all the papers again, as she placed them back inside the box.

  
"What are you even looking for?"

  
"Old pictures. Mom said she's hidden a bunch of them upstairs."

  
"You mean, pictures of the two of us before the accident?"

  
"Yeah. She said they were too painful to keep with her, so she hid them up there and then she completely forgot about them."

  
There was a pang of pain in Carol's heart. She opened the box again and pulled out one of the stacks of pictures.

  
"I think she probably meant these."

  
Monica turned around and as soon as she saw the pictures, she slid toward Carol. She picked them up and started looking through them.

  
"Yeah, I think that's it."

  
"Do I want to know why Maria wanted you to retrieve those?"

  
"You probably do, but I'm not telling you anything. I'm her maid of honor, after all."

  
She placed the pictures back in the box.

  
"Let me close off that box and we'll bring them all downstairs."

  
"I still haven't found the last one though..."

  
Carol looked around her when she suddenly realized that the last box she'd been looking for had been right in front of her this entire time.

  
"Never mind."

* * *

  
  
Taking all four boxes to the upstate facility had taken about an hour. Carol had left some of the pictures to Monica, but she had also taken some with her. Carol placed every box in her office, then went to take a quick shower. She could still feel the dust tickling her skin, especially her hands. She came back to her office all clean and dust-less, and she started going through every tape, ordering them by date. Tony had found for her – or made, she still wasn't sure – a machine that would read the tape and record it on her computer, which was exactly what she needed.

  
After ordering each tape, she pulled out the one she had been particularly looking for. When she'd seen that picture of Maria and Monica earlier, she'd remembered that this was something she had filmed. She placed the tape in the machine, and the image appeared on her computer as it was recorded.

  
The video showed the beginning of a mountain path, with small bushes growing on each side. They must have been somewhere near the Air Force Academy. The rocks around them were of a light orange, close to a yellow color. Probably somewhere in Colorado.

  
"Who's ready to climb all the way up there?" Carol heard herself asking.

  
The camera then pointed to Maria, with Monica strapped to her chest. They were both wearing sunglasses, like in the picture.

  
"You couldn't wait to be up there to pull out the recorder?" Maria asked.

  
"Why? Down here is fine too."

  
She filmed the mountain range around them once again, then the video changed. Carol was walking ahead of Maria, filming her. Actually, she was walking backward, or else there would have been no way she could have filmed her that way.

  
"Carol, watch where you're going!" Maria warned her.

  
"It's fine. I do this all the time."

  
"I swear, if you fall and break a bone or something, I'm not carrying you back to the car."

  
"I'm not going to break anything!"

  
It went on for just a few feet, and suddenly the camera fell back, and Carol heard herself yelp. It was followed by her chuckling, and Maria saying:

  
"I told you so."

  
Carol pushed herself back up and said:

  
"I'm alright, see? No broken anything."

  
"Yeah, just wounded pride."

  
As the video moved on to another point in their climbing, Carol heard a knock on her office door. She couldn't pause the video, but it didn't matter. She would be able to watch it how often she wanted after that.

  
"Come in."

  
Maria passed her head inside, only to find a collection of tapes arranged on the ground, like a series of dominoes ready to fall.

  
"What is going on?"

  
"Oh, you know..."

  
Carol suddenly realized as she spoke that Maria was not supposed to know about the video.

  
"Tony showed me this machine that can record old tapes and put it on the computer, so I thought I would try it out," she explained with barely a tremble in her voice.

  
"Try it out, or digitize every single one of our tapes?"

  
"Is there a difference?"

  
Maria smiled and walked in. She quickly assessed the number of tapes on the ground.

  
"It's going to take you for forever."

  
"Well, I have all the time in the world."

  
They suddenly heard singing coming from her computer. Maria moved to stand behind Carol as they both looked at the computer. Carol was still filming, but she was also carrying Monica in the baby carrier. She was playing with Monica's sunglasses, moving them up and down her nose. The song was just one Carol had improvised on the fly, about little frogs wearing sunglasses. Monica was trying to catch her hand as it lowered the glasses on her nose, and she failed every time, which made her laugh.

  
"Oh, she was so adorable..." Maria said as they looked on.

  
The Maria in the video didn't seem as awed by the scene.

  
"If you trip again with Monica on your shoulders..."

  
"I'm not going to trip again! Here, you can take the recorder."

  
Carol handed the recorder to Maria, who took it with a sigh. She filmed Carol, who had been wearing nothing but a tank top and shorts, her hair back in a ponytail and her entire front covered by Monica. Her usual sunglasses rested on her nose.

  
"How do I look?"

  
"I would be tempted to say like a kangaroo..."

  
"The correct answer was awesome, by the way," Carol replied as they started walking again.

  
"I was gonna say 'sexy'..." they heard Maria mutter in the recorder.

  
Carol looked up at Maria, who was visibly embarrassed.

  
"I had completely forgotten about this."

  
"See? Now, aren't you glad I filmed it all?"

  
They looked back at the video, where it seemed Maria was purposefully filming Carol's very short denim shorts.

  
"Are you still filming?" Carol shouted over her shoulder.

  
"Yeah, I found something very interesting to document," Maria replied.

  
"Were you filming my ass?" Carol asked, as Maria, who had completely forgotten about this, was holding in her laughter.

  
"I guess I was," she giggled.

  
Carol moved her desk chair back just a bit and placed her hand on Maria's waist, guiding her to her lap.

  
"Come on, I still have a ton of tapes to go through, and it's going to be a treasure trove."

  
With a smile, Maria sat down on Carol's lap, wrapping her arms around her neck. Carol placed a kiss on her cheek. They turned back to the video, only to find that Carol was the one filming now, and she was filming Maria's shorts too.


End file.
